Freedom by the Sword - US Army Center Of Military History

Southern Louisiana and the Gulf Coast, 1863–1865 131
tance of shipment & unavoidable exposure, they lose some of the original sweetness,
yet so long as they can be used, they should be, since no better can be provided.” The
complaint about rations came from a division of the XIX Corps, but heat and humidity
attacked the food of black soldiers too. By October, the 62d, 65th, and 67th USCIs, all
newly arrived from Missouri, had lost 1,374 dead from an original strength of 3,158
officers and men. An inspection of the 65th revealed that the men “were not examined,
or but cursorily” when they entered the service, and that the regiment contained a large
number who were “totally unfit for soldiers.” 19
Inadequate physical examinations plagued the Union Army throughout the war.
The U.S. Sanitary Commission judged that men in only 9 percent of the two hundred
white regiments it studied in 1861 had undergone “a thorough inspection,” a situation
that left at least one quarter of the troops “not only utterly useless, but a positive
encumbrance and embarrassment.” Poorly sited latrines in the Colored Troops’ camp
combined with untidy personal habits “to breed pestilence without limit.” Medical officers
complained often about careless defecation by white and black troops alike. At
Morganza, the soldiers’ health had scarcely improved by the end of the summer. 20
Maintenance of the camp’s defenses occupied most of the working day, to the
point where Col. Samuel M. Quincy of the 73d USCI protested that “all the fatigue
duty on fortifications” fell on the black regiments in violation of a general order prescribing
that they should “only . . . take their fair share of fatigue duty with the white
troops.” From time to time there was an alarm, as in late July, when a cavalry patrol reported
that five hundred Confederates had crossed the Atchafalaya. In response, half of
the Colored Troops at Morganza received instructions to be “up and under arms daily
at 3 a.m. . . . The men will be aroused without beat of drum and with as little noise as
possible.” The alarm subsided when another patrol, four days later, reported no enemy
forces east of the Atchafalaya. 21
“We have been here about four days now,” Capt. Henry M. Crydenwise of the 73d
USCI wrote to his family, “We sleep with our clothes on ready to spring up at a moment’s
notice.” He went on:
They are building fortifications here & straining every energy to complete them.
Yesterday I had command of our reg[imen]t at work on the trenches. We worked all
day long from day light till dark. . . . About 11 O clock last night the “Long Roll”
beat and we turned out expecting to have a fight, but it proved to be our cavalry
coming in which had been out on a scout! . . . Just imagine after a hard day’s work
19 Maj J. K. Hudson to 1st Lt D. G. Fenno, 11 Aug 1864 (“the stench”); Capt J. E. Howard to Brig
Gen G. F. McGinnis, 5 Sep 1864 (“a slight”); Brig Gen D. Ullmann to Lt Col C. T. Christensen, 29
Oct 1864; all in Entry 1976, U.S. Forces at Morganza, Letters Received (LR), pt. 2, Polyonymous
Successions of Cmds, Record Group (RG) 393, Rcds of U.S. Army Continental Cmds, National
Archives (NA). Lt Col W. H. Thurston to Maj G. P. Drake, 29 Oct 1864 (“were not,” “totally unfit”),
65th USCI, Entry 57C, Regimental Papers, RG 94, Rcds of the Adjutant General’s Office, NA.
20 Surgeon C. Allen to 1st Lt D. G. Fenno, 23 Jun 1864 (“to breed”); 1st Lt J. W. Read to 1st Lt A.
F. Hunt, 5 Sep 1864; both in Entry 159DD, Generals’ Books and Papers (Ullmann), RG 94, NA. Bell
I. Wiley, The Life of Billy Yank: The Common Soldier of the Union (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill,
1952), pp. 23, 125 (“a thorough,” “not only”), 126.
21 OR, ser. 1, vol. 41, pt. 2, pp. 327–28, 353–55 (“up and under,” p. 354), 381–82, 415–16, 566
(“only . . . take”); 1st Lt C. S. Sargent to Brig Gen M. K. Lawler, 5 Sep 1864 (“all the fatigue”), Entry
1976, pt. 2, RG 393, NA.